This pamphlet describes how to find a child care health consultant to provide technical assistance and instruction on health and safety for staff and families. The brochure also describes how to assess the knowledge, skills, and work of health professionals who provide health and safety consultation and professional development for early childhood programs. Child care health consultation is an evidence-based practice.  The brochure can be used by early educators, health consultants and policy makers  to define and discuss the role of child care health consultants. 

How to Choose and Use a Child Care Health Consultant

This new quick reference guide provides child care directors, teachers, and caregivers with essential information on managing emotional and behavioral issues in group care settings.

Topics cover social-emotional development, biting, napping difficulties, post-traumatic stress disorder, gender development, self-stimulation behaviors, and more. In addition to behavioral issues commonly seen in small children, epigenetics, medications, toxic stress, adverse childhood experiences, and how to help children who have undergone traumatic experiences are touched on by the editors.

The book contains 25 quick reference sheets on topics such as ADHD, ASD, depression, tantrums, and separation anxiety. In addition, sample daily report forms, medication forms, and other informative documents to support working with young children are also included in this comprehensive guide.

Case studies are also presented on various difficult situations with small children in a classroom setting and discuss how these situations might be handled.

To order this book, go to the AAP bookstore at www.aap.org. Updated 3/2022

Managing Chronic Health Needs in Child Care and Schools: A Quick Reference Guide, 2nd Edition helps teachers and caregivers address the challenges of caring for children with chronic health conditions and special health care needs in child care and school settings. The health issues covered include chronic illnesses, acute situations, and selected developmental and behavioral problems, with a special emphasis on children with special health care needs. More than 50 quick reference sheets on specific conditions provide teachers and caregivers with guidance on how to help at a glance. New quick reference sheets include Childhood Obesity, Eczema, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Food Allergies, GERD, and more.  To order this book, go to the AAP bookstore at www.aap.org. Updated 3/2022

The newly revised and updated sixth edition is aligned with the most recent version of the premier AAP source of information on infectious diseases, Red Book®: 2021–2024 Report of the Committee on Infectious Diseases, 32nd Edition, and the AAP, American Public Health Association, and National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education Caring for Our Children: National Health and Safety Performance Standards; Guidelines for Early Care and Education Programs, 5th Edition. 

The forms have been updated to align with Caring for Our Children: National Health and Safety Performance Standards; Guidelines for Early Care and Education Programs, 5th Edition. As always, the guide is easy to use, providing clear, authoritative guidance on limiting the spread of infection.

The sixth edition of this handy reference about how to prevent and manage infection in group care settings for children can be purchased from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the national organization of pediatricians and other pediatric health professionals..

The PA Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Pediatrics published the 5th edition of Model Child Care Health Policies in October 2013. Significantly revised and updated, the new edition is a practical tool for adoption and implementation of best practices for health and safety in group care settings for young children. This edition replaces the previously published version and updates of individual policies that were posted on the ECELS website. ECELS encourages early education and child care professionals to adapt the model policies as site-specific documents that fit their programs. Two formats are available: one replicates the hard copy publication. The other format, posted 12-12-2014, has form fields that allow users to insert their site-specific details directly into the PDF document.

The editor, Susan Aronson, MD, worked with the help of a national group of reviewers who made valuable contributions to the new edition. The policies are consistent with the 2011, third edition of Caring for Our Children (CFOC3) accessed in the updated version available online at www.nrckids.org 10/2013. CFOC3 contains the best practice standards for health and safety in early care and education programs. It is a publication of the National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Public Health Association. The National Resource Center organized a group of national experts to select the CFOC3 standards most closely associated with prevention of significant harm and published these as Stepping Stones, 3rd edition (SS3). ECELS created a crosswalk between MCCHP and SS3 for users who want help prioritizing among the broad range of topics. Use the online version of MCCHP and the crosswalk downloads below. If you prefer to work with the hard copy of MCCHP, order it from the AAP Book Store. Users of MCCHP may draw from and adapt the model policies to suit their programs using the suggested citation in the formatter of the book.

Crosswalk of MCCHP with Stepping Stones

Model Child Care Health Policies, 5th Edition

MCCHP_File_with_Form_Fields

Appendix E - Refusal to Vaccinate Form